Competition Details (2021)
Competition Description
The TJUAV team competes in the annual AUVSI SUAS competition. AUVSI SUAS is an international, collegiate-level competition with many notable teams such as Harvard, Stanford, and Cornell competing. The official rules for the AUVSI SUAS 2021 Competition can be found here.
The competition is split into three sections: Technical Journal (20%), Flight Readiness Review (20%), and Mission Demonstration (60%). The Technical Journal is a 10-page technical explanation of our plane and our controls system. The Flight Readiness Review is a 15-minute video displaying our plane's development/testing, proving its capabilities, and showing that we are ready for the Mission Demonstration. The Mission Demonstration is the actual competition at the naval base in Maryland when we actually fly and perform all of the tasks.
Mission Demonstration Tasks
While the tasks mostly stay the same, every couple of years a new challenge is added. This year, they introduced the map stitching task. The competition details that are documented here are specific to the 2021 rules.
Timeline (10%)
Overview: The competition time is divided into three sections: setup, mission, and post-processing, with 15-minute, 30-minute, and 10-minute time limits respectively. Setup time involves reporting to the judges a summary of what we plan on achieving, extracting mission data from the interop server, and setting up all of our electronics to make our plane flight-ready. Mission time is the actual flight of the plane and is when the majority of our operations will be running. Post-processing time is time given afterward during which we can't fly (we must land before then), but we can continue processing data and submitting ODCL objects/mapping data to the interop server.
Scoring: The following formula is used to calculate our timeline score: max(0, 60 - 5 * max(0, X - 20) - Y) / 60). Basically, our timeline score starts off at 100. After 20 minutes of mission time, every extra minute of mission time causes a deduction of 8.3 of timeline points. Every minute of post-processing time causes a deduction of 1.6 of timeline points. Our final timeline score is the score that we get / 100.
Autonomous Flight (10%)
Requirements / Overview: The aircraft must fly autonomously for a minimum of 3 minutes to even qualify for the competition.
Scoring: We're given a sequence of waypoints (no limit on how many), and the waypoint path can be up to 6 miles in length. For each waypoint, the ratio of points is max(0, (100ft - distance) / 100ft), which basically means that starting at 100ft away, we get an extra point for each foot we get closer. Each waypoint is worth the same. Your total score for this section is total points/max # of points.
Manual Takeover: Every manual takeover (including manual takeoff and landing) results in -10% of autonomous flight points. Every 2 minutes that you stay in manual mode results in an extra -10% penalty.
TFOA: If parts fall off the aircraft during the flight, a penalty of -25% of autonomous flight points will be given.
Crashing: Crashing results in a penalty of -50% of autonomous flight points.
Obstacle Avoidance (10%)
Requirements / Overview: One of the prerequirements is that we can extract and upload telemetry at a constant rate (1Hz, which is once per second) to the interop server. There are two types of obstacles during flight: Stationary obstacles and moving obstacles. Stationary obstacles are large, imaginary cylinders, each with a given radius (between 30ft and 300ft) and height (no constraint). If the plane touches any part of the cylinder, it counts as hitting the obstacle. NOTE: These cylinders aren't actually there, they're just imaginary! Moving obstacles, on the other hand, are real. When we fly, there will be one or two other teams flying at the same time. We'll have access to the team's telemetry data if they decide to submit any.
Scoring: We don't gain any points for avoiding moving obstacles (other than the fact that our plane doesn't crash). There can be up to 20 stationary obstacles, and the total # of points achieved for this section is: (obstacles avoided / total obstacles) ^ 3.
Object Detection, Classification, Localization (ODCL) (30%)
Overview: At the start of the competition, we'll receive a "search zone" that contains all but one of the standard ODCL targets. The last standard ODCL target is located somewhere outside the boundary. There is also one emergent ODCL object that we are given the location of.
Standard ODCL overview: Standard ODCL targets are an alphanumeric on top of a shape, and 1 foot wide with 1-inch thick lettering. Each object has 5 characteristics: shape, shape color, alphanumeric, alphanumeric color, and alphanumeric orientation (north, east, southwest, etc.). Each target also has a geolocation (the latitude and longitude of the target). A target is considered autonomous if there was no human that helped in detection/classification/submission, and is considered actionable if it was submitted during our first flight.
Emergent ODCL overview: There is one emergent ODCL in the search zone. The emergent ODCL is a mannequin performing some task, such as putting out a fire with a watering hose. The "characteristic" for this object is a simple description of the task that it is performing.
ODCL Scoring: Each target is scored individually and has 4 sections. To submit a target, we have to submit the above aspects (characteristics, geolocation, actionable, autonomy) and also a cropped image of the target. The target must cover at least 25% of the cropped image.
40% of the target's points are achieved for characteristics (for standard ODCLs, that's 8% per correct characteristic. For emergent ODCLs, that's 40% for a correct description). 40% of points are achieved for geolocation based on the given formula: max(0, (150ft - distance) / 150ft), where 0ft (perfect geolocation) would grant all 40% and 150+ft would grant 0%. An extra 10% of points are granted if it's actionable, and the final 10% of points are granted if it's autonomous.
You can submit a target both manually and autonomously, and only the object with the higher score will count. However, if you submit the same target multiple times, or if you submit a target that doesn't match with a real target, then you get a penalty of -5% of total ODCL points.
Map Stitching (10%)
Overview: At the start of the competition, we'll receive an area that we have to make a map of. The area will be too big to take a single picture of, so we'll have to stitch together individual images to make a large map. The map should have an aspect ratio of 16:9 and be of relatively high resolution. The map should also be in the form of WGS 84 Web Mercator Projection.
Scoring: Points will be awarded for the quality of the map. 100% of map stitching points awarded for a high-quality map (professional looking, just like Google Maps), 50% of points awarded for medium quality (minor stitch marks, varying exposures, but still usable as a map), and 0% for anything else.
UGV Drop (20%)
Overview: The UGV drop involves dropping a car at a certain location and having the car autonomously drive to another location right after. The UGV must carry a standard 8oz water bottle. The entire UGV (including water bottle) has a weight limit of 64oz and can drive up to 10 mph.
Scoring: There are two aspects to the scoring. 50% of the points are given for the accuracy of the drop location (where the UGV lands). You get 100% of the drop location points for being within 5ft, 50% for 15ft, 25% for 40ft, and 0% for more than 40ft.
The second part is the drive location, which is the other 50% of this section's points. You get all of this section's points if the UGV drives to and stop within 10ft of the drive location, and none of this section's points if the UGV doesn't stop within 10ft of the drive location. Bonus points are achieved if you don't go out of bounds.
Operational Excellence (10%)
The last 10% of points are earned by participating as a team.
Team Members
There will be two teams present at the competition, the guest team and the competition team, each containing 8 members.
Guest Team
Although the guest team will not be able to directly participate in the competition, their presence is vital. The guest team will help setting everything up before the competition (safety checks, interop server communication, etc.). Additionally, they get to watch everyone (including TJ) compete!
Competition Team
The competition team will do everything the same as the guest team, but when the time comes, they will be the ones to actually compete. This means they are the only ones who can perform competition tasks.
Rules
Weird rules
Last year (2019), there were a lot of weird rules that we discovered at the competition, which took away from our mission time and caused confusion. If you remember any important rules we learned last year, list them here.
GCS display must be in knots (not meters/second), MissionPlanner has a setting for this
The geofence must always be visible by the GCS judge (last year this meant we had to stay on the Flight Plan tab, and we were unable to view the data on the Flight Data tab
The Mission ID for the interop server is provided when you start ur setup time
The team leader needs to debrief the judges (5-ish minutes) on what tasks will be attempted during the flight
Important rules
Put anything important that you see mentioned in the rules here:
UGV judge must give the go-ahead before dropping UGV
Although propulsion can't be used for UGV, using a sparrow or something like that w/o propulsion can be used as a guided glider
There will be multiple people flying at the same time, meaning crashing into another plane at the same time is a possibility
Although it is possible that the other plane will be submitting telemetry data, it is not required, and therefore we can't depend on it
The waypoint flight must be completed before attempting any other tasks. If any tasks (such as ODCL) can be completed during the waypoint flight, it is allowed as long as the plane doesn't need to steer off path to complete said task.
Debrief
If there's anything important you remember from last year's competition, list it here
Make sure you have someone keeping track of time during the competition, THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT.
Setting up hardware did not take very long, what took long was getting the right MP setting and other tweaks like that, let's make sure we do this kinda stuff beforehand.
We can't be coding at the competition, or bad stuff will happen like last year :(. All code should be done before the competition, and if it's not, then it's not gonna be used during the competition.
We get to test with their interop server at the competition, so let's spend as much time as possible doing that.
If we're not the first 6 teams to go on a given day, then we can use other teams' setup times to our advantage (since they have 6 teams at the flight line at a time).
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